rom tuft to tuft, and she lifts her skirts high,
and has her neat legs to show. All quiet everywhere; the white grouse
have their young ones grown already and do not fly up hissing any
more; they are sheltered spots where bushes grow on the moors. Less
than an hour since they started, and already they are sitting down to
rest. Says Inger: "Oh, I didn't think you were like that?" Oh, she
is all weakness towards him, and smiles piteously, being so deep in
love--ay, a sweet and cruel thing to be in love, 'tis both! Right and
proper to be on her guard--ay, but only to give in at last. Inger
is so deep in love--desperately, mercilessly; her heart is full of
kindliness towards him, she only cares to be close and precious to
him.

Ay, a woman getting on in years....

"When the work's finished, you'll be going off again," says she.

No, he wasn't going. Well, of course, some time, but not yet, not for
a week or so.

"Hadn't we better be getting home?" says she.

"No."

They pluck more berries, and in a little while they find a sheltered
place among the bushes, and Inger says: "Gustaf, you're mad to do it."
And hours pass--they'll be sleeping now, belike, among the bushes.
Sleeping? Wonderful--far out in the wilderness, in the Garden of Eden.
Then suddenly Inger sits upright and listens: "Seems like I heard some
one down on the road away off?"

The sun is setting, the tufts of heather darkening in shadow as they
walk home. They pass by many sheltered spots, and Gustaf sees them,
and Inger, she sees them too no doubt, but all the time she feels as
if some one were driving ahead of them. Oh, but who could walk all the
way home with a wild handsome lad, and be on her guard all the time?
Inger is too weak, she can only smile and say: "I never knew such a
one."

She comes home alone. And well that she came just then, a fortunate
thing. A minute later had not been well at all. Isak had just come
into the courtyard with his forge, and Aronsen--and there is a horse
and cart just pulled up.

"_Goddag_," says Geissler, greeting Inger as well. And there they
stand, all looking one at another--couldn't be better....

Geissler back again. Years now since he was there, but he is back
again, aged a little, greyer a little, but bright and cheerful as
ever. And finely dressed this time, with a white waistcoat and gold
chain across. A man beyond understanding!

Had he an inkling, maybe, that something was going on up at the mine,